Dowell
Occupational name referring to a person who worked with wooden staves or barrels.
Name Census estimates that about 74 living Americans carry the first name Dowell. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Dowell today is around 73 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dowell births was 1919 (10 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dowell. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Dowell is about 73 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Dowells were born before 1963.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Dowell. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
74
~ 1 in 4,631,815 Americans
Peak year
1919
10 babies that year
Average age
73
years old
1969 SSA rank
#3,128
Tracked since 1915
Census
Dowell in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 177 people with the first name Dowell, which placed it at #41,393 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#41,393
National first-name rank
People counted
177
177 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
59.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dowell
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dowell is White at 59.3%. The next largest groups are Black (27.7%) and Two or More Races (4.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Dowell described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Dowell at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White59.3% · 105
- Black or African American27.7% · 49
- Two or more races4.5% · 8
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.0% · 7
- Hispanic or Latino2.8% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.7% · 3
Popularity
Dowell: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dowell from the 1910s through to the 1960s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 50 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Dowell remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dowell by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Dowell during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dowell
The given name Dowell is an English name derived from the Old English word "doel," which means "share" or "portion." The name likely originated in the Middle Ages, around the 12th or 13th century, and was initially used as a surname for people who lived near a boundary or shared land.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Dowell can be found in the Domesday Book, a historical record compiled in 1086 on the orders of William the Conqueror. The book mentions a landowner named Dowell in the county of Oxfordshire.
In the 13th century, a man named Dowell de Ralegh was recorded as a witness in a legal document in Somerset, England. This suggests that the name was in use as a given name as early as the 1200s.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals with the given name Dowell. One of the earliest was Dowell Phillip, an English clergyman and academic who lived in the late 16th century and served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Another prominent figure was Dowell O'Reilly, an Irish lawyer and politician who played a significant role in the Irish nationalist movement in the early 20th century. He was born in 1865 and served as a member of the Irish Parliament and the British House of Commons.
In the field of literature, Dowell Maunsell was an Irish writer and editor who lived in the late 19th century. He was known for his contributions to Irish literature and his work as the editor of the Dublin University Magazine.
The name Dowell also appeared in religious texts and records. In the 16th century, there was a Dowell Taylour, an English Protestant martyr who was burned at the stake for his religious beliefs during the reign of Queen Mary I.
More recently, Dowell Loggains was an American football coach who worked in the National Football League (NFL) for several teams, including the Tennessee Titans and the Miami Dolphins. He was born in 1980 and had a successful career as a coach and offensive coordinator in the NFL.
People
Dowell + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dowell as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Dowell: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dowell?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 74 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dowell going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 4,631,815 US residents.
Is Dowell a common name?
We classify Dowell as "Very Rare". It ranks above 60.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 211 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dowell most popular?
The single biggest year for Dowell was 1919, when 10 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dowell is about 73 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dowell in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 177 people with the name Dowell, or 0.06 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #41,393 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Dowell in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Dowell?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dowell leans strongly male. 162 people counted with this name were male (93.6%), compared with 11 female bearers (6.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Dowell?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dowell is White at 59.3%. The next largest groups are Black (27.7%) and Two or More Races (4.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Dowell most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dowell in the 2020 Census, accounting for 59.3% (105 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Dowell in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dowell a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Dowell in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Dowell still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dowell in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Dowell can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Dowell?
For a quick modern take, check how many people share the name Dowell on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.